About Us

Actipro Software
is a leading provider of .NET user interface controls for the WPF, UWP, Silverlight, and WinForms frameworks,
and is most well-known for their SyntaxEditor syntax-highlighting code editor control.

Let's take a quick look at some of the more notable features that were added.

Charts

Bar Customization

The series style selector's method for picking each bar's style in a bar chart has been updated to be passed bar index and count, allowing for individual bars to be customized.

Docking/MDI

UIA Updates for Better Coded UI Test Support

The docking window container UIA hierarchy has been updated to better support Coded UI Test. These changes should now allow Coded UI Tests for controls in docking windows to record and play back successfully.

Keeping Auto-Hide Popups Open For Dialogs

There is now a property that can be set temporarily to prevent an auto-hide popup from closing when WPF keyboard focus is lost from it, which can happen if a dialog window is opened from a button on the docking window. In this scenario in the past, the button could be clicked and the auto-hide popup might slide back. The new option allows the popup to remain open when the dialog is open.

Improved Dragging Over Nested Linked Dock Sites

Updated docking window logic now shows dock guides by default for linked dock sites at the same nesting level, when there are multiple dock sites nested. If there are multiple linked dock sites covering the same drag location, the Shift key can be held to switch dock guides to an alternate dock site.

Editors

MaskedTextBox Input Improvements

Logic has been updated to block some input that would trigger a shorter match.

NaN and Infinity Support Added to Multiple Edit Boxes

The CornerRadiusEditBox, PointEditBox, RectEditBox, SizeEditBox, ThicknessEditBox, and VectorEditBox controls now all have properties that can be set to allow NaN and infinity component values.

Gauge

Improved Digital Gauge Segment Rendering

The distance between digital gauge segments for the 7-segment (normal) and 14-segment (normal) character sets has been reduced, making the digital gauges easier to read at certain sizes, and more like most real readouts.

SyntaxEditor

Free Sample C#/VB Syntax Language Updates

The free language definition files now support C# 6 and VB 14 enhancements.

XML Start Tag Self-Closing

The XML auto-completion logic in the Web Languages Add-on will self-close start tags if a '/' is typed.

Summary

There were also a large number of smaller improvements made throughout the products. See the announcement posts for the detailed list of enhancements and updates:

Our Bar Codes product has been ported to the WinRT XAML platform. This product, which already exists on WPF and Silverlight, allows your apps to render vector-based bar codes using many common 2D and linear bar code symbologies.

A full set of demos and QuickStarts are included to help you get going.

The interop assembly that makes it easy to use Docking/MDI with the Prism framework has been updated to reference the latest Prism v5.0.

We've made numerous layout and performance updates to further improve the product.

We also have been working hard on building a completely new internal engine for the Docking/MDI product, which will be available sometime later this year. Keep an eye on our blog for posts detailing the advanced features that are coming with those updates.

All of our edit box controls in the WinRT Editors now have an IsEditable property. When set to false, the edit box behaves more like a ComboBox, while still retaining the rich popups that make the editors unique. This is an ideal option for apps whose primary mode of interaction is expected to be touch.

The CornerRadiusEditBox, PointEditBox, RectEditBox, SizeEditBox, and ThicknessEditBox controls have been updated to support text parsing one and/or two number entries where appropriate, which is useful for easy uniform value entry.

In the above ThicknessEditBox, a 2 is typed and then Enter is pressed. The value is converted to a uniform thickness of 2.

A ValueChanged event has been added to all edit boxes, which fires when a value change is committed.

Finally, edit box padding has been adjusted so that more content is visible in the same amount of space.

A new DigitalGauge.CharacterSegmentThickness property allows for segment thickness adjustments. This gives you even finer control over the presentation of your digital characters.

Added the optional IResolver.UnknownReturnTypeReferenceCallback callback that can be used to provide return type references for unknown types.

Updated the resolver to recognize where 'cls()' in a class method can create a new instance of the related class.

Updated the IntelliPrompt completion list to filter unmatched items.

Updated the IntelliPrompt docstring display to retain presentation of line feeds.

The Views product has a new TaskBoard control added, available in all three (WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT) platforms. TaskBoard can be used to create a board of reorderable columns and cards. All of the drags use smooth animations to give you the feel that you are really interacting with the object.

The first full-source sample that comes with the control is a Repair Shop Scheduling demo, which shows how a TaskBoard can be used to interactively schedule work to resources, such as employees. TaskBoard excels at providing a visual way of representing work/tasks (displayed as cards) within a queue of some sort (displayed as a column).

The second sample is a Task Planning demo, which shows how a TaskBoard can visually organize a project's tasks.

We've added another new primitive SemiEllipse shape, which renders half of an ellipse.

The existing Triangle shape has a new IsClosed property that when set to false will create a triangle with only two of the sides rendered.

Finally, in the WPF Shared Library, we added GradientBrushSlider.CanAddStops and CanRemoveStops properties that determine whether stops can be added and removed from a GradientBrushSlider.

Several customers reported some issues with the updates made in Docking/MDI for the first 2010.2 build. One of the enhancements we made caused several side effects which were all related to the same issue. We’ve resolved the issue and have posted an important WPF Studio 2010.2 build 531 maintenance release you’ll want to grab. It’s available now on our site.

New features

The new build 531 also adds some neat new features to a couple products.

Gauge

One new feature added to Gauge is the ability to place text on pointer needles. We have options for how to orient the text too. It can move exactly with the needle, can always render horizontally, or can move with the needle but intelligently flip upside-down when appropriate so that the text continues to render right-side-up such as in this screenshot:

Linear gauges also get easy-to-use text pointer labels.

Both circular and linear gauges also receive new features for managing refresh rate, similar to an existing feature we have with our digital gauges.

This feature is useful when there is a high update rate of data sent to the gauge. The refresh rate will buffer the updates that appear in the UI to a designated refresh rate. So instead of having a gauge pointer flipping all over and being difficult to read, you can set it up to just update a couple times a second and it will animate much slower, thus making the gauge data easier to visually consume.

Another new feature added is the ability to render lowercase letters in the digital gauges via a new character casing option. Choose to force characters to lowercase, uppercase, or render text as-is.

SyntaxEditor

A great update to SyntaxEditor is the new indent provider service. This service can be registered on your language to tell the editor how to indent code when the Enter key is pressed. Options are no indent, block indent, or smart indent.

Previous builds of SyntaxEditor for WPF used no indent, but the default has now been made to block indent if no indent provider service is registered on a language. That means that when pressing Enter, text will move to the same indentation as the previous line.

Smart indent allows a language to programmatically indicate how to indent a line. This means in C# for instance, you can scan back to see if you are right after a { character and indent a tab stop if so.

Another new service is a basic interface for supporting the formatting of text ranges. Text formatting involves adjusting whitespace and symbols such as braces to make code more readable.

We’ve added some documentation on these new features and will be adding some samples of their usage hopefully in the next build.

Update on Silverlight Studio 2010.2

We are currently finishing up work on Silverlight Studio 2010.2. We hope to have it out even as early as next week.

The 2010.2 version will have the new Book control in Views, along with all the SyntaxEditor updates made in WPF Studio 2010.2 such as the new LL(*) Parser Framework, indent provider and text formatter services, the Web Languages Add-on, and more.

Our Gauge product has just been updated with two new controls, lots of new features for the existing controls, and several bug fixes. This update is part of build 4.5.0480 that was released this past Friday.

Here are some details on some of the major new features and controls...

New Features

Logarithmic Scales

The CircularGauge and LinearGauge now support logarithmic scales with a configurable base. Logarithmic scales can be useful when more sensitivity is needs for lower values, since smaller values are spaced further apart.

A CircularGauge with a logarithmic scale using a base of 10

Glass Effect and Frames

All the gauge controls allow more customization of the frame rendered. The frame rim is now independent of the frame background, which allows you to mix and match the various effects supported by each. In addition, a new glass effect has been added, which produces a more stunning look.

A CircularGauge shown with (left) and without (right) the new glass effect

Dynamic Sizing

The gauges now support being resized dynamically, so that the inner elements resize proportionally. This is accomplished by specifying percentage-based sizes, but fixed-based sizes can still be used if desired.

A CircularGauge sized 200x200 (left) and 300x300 (right)

Scrolling Text

The DigitalGauge can now scroll the text displayed to the left or right using a configurable interval. This allows long text to be presented to the end-user using a marquee effect.

A DigitalGauge using the new dot matrix character type with scrolling marquee functionality

New Controls

Two new controls come with this update, an Led control and a ToggleSwitch control.

Led Control

The Led control is great for presenting simple state (on, off, blinking) information to the end-user. The led light is fully animated and customizable, with options for the light shape and colors.

An Led with a red light

ToggleSwitch Control

The ToggleSwitch control works much like the native WPF ToggleButton, but looks like a real-life switch. The switch is fully animated and customizable, with 2 styles to choose from.

A ToggleSwitch with a circular look

Summary

There are too many other new features to list here, but check out the latest build to try them out for yourselves.

To celebrate, we'll be posting details about a special promotion for existing UIStudio for WinForms customers who are looking to get into the WPF arena.

Docking & MDI for WPF

Actipro Docking & MDI is a complete solution for easily adding a docking tool window and/or multiple document interface to your WPF applications. Allow your end users to drag and dock tool windows wherever they please, and to persist their customizations. Also use this product to fill the gap left by Microsoft not including an MDI mechanism in the WPF platform.

Docking & MDI has been implemented with flexibility in mind. It has more options than nearly any other competitive product out there and mimics Visual Studio 2008's capabilities. While it supports all the types of standard layouts you find in most docking window products, it also supports some extended functionality that you won't find anywhere else.

Gauge for WPF

Actipro Gauge is a control suite that implements circular, linear, and digital gauge controls for the Windows Presentation Foundation framework. Each gauge control has tons of options available, providing for limitless possibilities.

Gauge controls are ideal for displaying several data points in a concise and compact area. Everything from car dashboards to medical and industrial equipment use gauges, and are quickly recognized and understood by users.

The circular and linear gauges are perfect for presenting a value, or values, bound by a specific range. The digital gauge is perfect for mimicking real-life LED displays.

Other Enhancements

There were a lot of other minor enhancements and tweaks made throughout our WPF control products for this release. We added several new demos and useful utilities as well.

Theme Browser

One great new utility found in WPF Studio is the Theme Browser. A WPF Studio customer was kind enough to post a simple theme browser for our controls in the WPF Studio forums for the benefit of other customers.

We took this idea and ran with it, making a very helpful utility that lets you browse each Brush resource used by our products for the various themes. The utility shows a preview of each Brush and even allows you to copy a DynamicResource reference accessing the Brush to the clipboard so that you can reuse it in your applications as long as the same theme is loaded.

The new Theme Browser, that comes with WPF Studio

This is really useful for those of you making some customizations to other controls and wanting to use the same Brushes as us so that you have a consistent look in your application.

String Resource Browser

Going along with the Theme Browser idea, we wanted to make a String Resource Browser. All our products that display text in the user interface stores the default text in string resources. You can customize or localize the text in code-behind via a single line of code for each item.

The new String Resource Browser, that comes with WPF Studio

The String Resource Browser lets you examine all the string resources used in our various products. When you select a string resource, you have the ability to enter a customized version of it. The Browser even generates the C# and VB code you can paste into your application to perform the customization.

We've been working some long hours to get WPF Studio v4.0 completed and into your hands. Both the Docking & MDI and Gauge products are now just about code complete for their first release. We already have a lot of samples that demonstrate major areas of functionality. We are now working on documentation and designer support.

As mentioned before, WPF Studio v4.0 includes a complete set of circular, linear, and digital gauges, all of which are native WPF controls.

I wanted to highlight some of the capabilities of our gauges so we came up with an automotive gaugesgallery that shows a collage of gauge controls related to a car dashboard.

A car dashboard with gauges that can be fully data bound

All of the controls above are vector drawn (meaning they scale cleanly to any size) and can be data bound to live data.

Dampening, or the process of smoothing out transitions to new values, is fully supported too. When enabled, as values change, the gauge needles smoothly animate to the new values like a real gauge would.

The full source for these control samples are in our v4.0 Sample Browser. Stay tuned for some more sample screenshots soon.

We've had a lot of interest from customers regarding our product roadmap for WPF development. I wanted to post where things currently stand and where our future development priorities lay. I also would like to give customers the opportunity to voice their opinion as to what they would most like to see added to WPF Studio down the road.

In addition, we are now announcing a new WPF product that will be available after the WPF Studio v4.0 release: PropertyGrid for WPF.

WPF Product Roadmap

Here is the roadmap for WPF development as of June 2008.

WPF Studio v4.0 Release

The WPF Studio v4.0 release will be available in the next several weeks. We are still finishing up the two new products that have been added and are in the process of adding samples, documentation, etc.

Actipro Docking & MDI for WPF

The Docking product implements docking tool windows and MDI functionality for WPF. We haven't talked too much about the feature set yet, however we'll get into that closer to release time. Rest assured though that themes are created for all Windows system themes, along with all three Office themes. It also will offer a huge number of options.

Docking and MDI in Windows Vista

Use the docking tag to search for info on this product in the Actipro blog.

Actipro Gauge for WPF

The Gauge product makes it easy to create any sort of circular, linear, or digital gauge. These gauges can be used to represent data in digital dashboards, provide virtual instrumentation, and much more.

A circular gauge that shows how easy it is to create a working analog clock

Use the gauge tag to search for info on this product in the Actipro blog.

After WPF Studio v4.0

The following two products have had work started on them but were placed on hold temporarily while we divert our development resources towards getting WPF Studio v4.0 out the door.

PropertyGrid for WPF

A new product, PropertyGrid for WPF, will provide property grid functionality similar to that found in Visual Studio and Expression Blend. We will get into more details about the product following the WPF Studio v4.0 release. However its development is already fairly far along, and we expect it to be ready within a few weeks after the WPF Studio v4.0 release.

The first look at our upcoming PropertyGrid control for WPF

SyntaxEditor for WPF

SyntaxEditor for WPF will provide the high quality code editing experience you expect from Actipro, the industry leader in syntax highlighting editing controls and components. One SyntaxEditor for WPF design goal is to make a common document/parsing library so that it can be shared with the next Windows Forms SyntaxEditor v5.0 and CodeHighlighter. We also have a ton of new features planned that we will start posting about in the future.

As a WPF Studio Customer, Will I Receive These Products for Free?

As long as your WPF Studio subscription is active when a product is released, you will be eligible to upgrade to the new version and get any new products added to WPF Studio for free. Each WPF Studio developer license includes a free subscription that can be renewed at its expiration date each year.

What Would You Like to See Added?

Let's hear your comments on what you'd like to see added that hasn't been listed in our roadmap above.

Some suggestions from customers have included:

Grid

Chart/graph

Scheduling

Reporting

Please post a comment and rank in order of priority which of these (or your own suggestions) that you would like us to work on.

At Actipro, the opinions of our customers matter and your feedback really will help steer our long term future development efforts.

We've been hard at work over here on several new products for WPF Studio. The first that I've been posting about is the WPF Docking and MDI product. The Docking product is one of the new products that will be part of WPF Studio v4.0.

But we also have one other unannounced product coming to WPF Studio v4.0, and that is Actipro Gauge for WPF. We're very excited to have teamed up with NextWave to help enhance their forthcoming gauge product and include a split of the code as an Actipro branded product, and part of WPF Studio.

Gauge for WPF Features

A linear gauge... use to represent any sort of linear values, such as in meters

Gauge for WPF supports the creation of nearly any kind of gauge that you can imagine. Basic gauge types include circular, linear, and digital gauges. It includes a wealth of configurable properties, allowing you to completely customize the look and capabilities of your gauges.

A circular gauge... use to create any sort of instrumentation, meter, or knob

What can you do build with Gauge for WPF?

Electronic measurement gauges

Medical measurement gauges

Industrial measurement gauges

Knobs

Digital panels

Clocks and watches

Thermometers

Compasses

Vehicle dashboards

Flight simulation dashboards

Any other sort of circular, linear, or digital gauge

A digital gauge... use to create clocks or any type of digital readout

What are some common use examples for these sorts of gauges?

Business intelligence dashboards

Executive summary dashboards

Industrial or medical controls and readouts

Software interaction with electronic equipment

Simple digital readouts

Vehicle simulation

Availability

Both Docking for WPF and Gauge for WPF will be included in Actipro WPF Studio v4.0. We expect final release in the coming weeks.